Kids tend to be highly self-motivated to explore their interests as fast as they get them, and often up until they completely lose interest in what seemed to be a temporary obsession.
One could argue this is part of natural evolutionary psychology. Children endeavor to find a place where they fit into society by emulating the adults around them, who are already dynamic and fitting individuals that provide and create for them.
Kids want to be adults quickly, hence their mimicry and find their place in the world. So why don’t we put them to work?
Well, that’s child labor, which is a predominantly Bad thing, as real industrious work is often too dangerous for a child to handle.
The idea has been tested many times, and outside of lemonade stands or passing out flyers, child labor has been used to take advantage of children’s naivety and physical stature as far back we know in history.
But that labor, household chores, and learning the family trades early was nothing compared to the kind of horrors that children were forced to work through just barely 100 years ago.
10 /10 The Best Of Times
In pre-industrial society, children didn’t exist because they were too young to do anything. Early civilizations required the work of every possible person.
Children were put to work on daily chores and whatever they could handle as soon as possible and were given more responsibilities as they grew older.
These rites of passage extended to hunting, working in town mills, helping with families, caring for animals; people had children specifically for having more help on their farms and guaranteeing at least one would survive to take the family name forward.
9 /10 Industrial Revolution
At the dawn of the industrial revolution in the late 18th century, labor intensified to the point where now anyone and everyone could get a job – and so they did.
New factories popped up rapidly and had to be filled, not just by working adults but the children who commonly followed them in tow.
The image of child labor as we understand it today started in Britain’s coal-filled, death-trap automation-ridden factory landscapes where one could lose an arm and be forced to come back the next day to make up for a lost time.